The main flaw in the otherwise excellent Fun-Da-Mental album Seize The Time
was its reams of "mutual respect" sleeve notes and carefully transcribed
lyric sheets: there was a feeling that they were trying to say everything
they'd ever wanted to say there and then, in one big dollop. Although text
is still held as primary authority in many of the Middle

Eastern religions and doctrines (ask Salman Rushdie), it seems that they
may have to employ other strategies in order to infiltrate or integrate with
the language-sated West.

On first hearing, Muslimgauze sound like I imagined Fun-Da-Mental would
before actually hearing them. The "group" is actually the long term
project of one person, Bryn Jones, a percussionist and Islam devotee based
in Manchester. Blue Mosque and Citadel teem with wordless, high-definition
Electro-rai, thick with percussion loops and live zarb routines processed
through washing machine ambience. The work is interesting in its own right,
but it's hard to see why (as claimed in the accompanying press release) some
retailers have banned the records from their racks: sleeve art featuring
aerial photography of the shelled-out Iraqi desert does not make for effective
pro-PLO propaganda.

Where the music goes further than other Asian hybrids is in not actually
sounding like a hybrid at all. The heavily sequenced rhythmic elements of
cups and bells and distorting electronic short-circuitry fit this break-beat
treatment like a gauntlet. The effect is more meditative than aggressive,
giving something of the feeling of the automaton, hive mentality you see
in film of thousands descending upon a mosque. A call to prayer rather than
a call to arms: rare qualities in Western appropriations of Eastern culture.

review by Royal Green
This text originally appeared in The
Wire magazine (issue # 129).
Reproduced by permission.
The Wire on-line index.